May 2016
I first met Dinorah in July 2014 when I was awarded a Fellowship to participate in the National Associational for Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC) Leadership Institute in San Antonio.
Dinorah is the Director of Latino Arts Strings Program & Mariachi Juvenil at Latino Arts, Inc. in Milwaukee, WI.
During our time together in San Antonio, we discovered that we had one thing in common: We both grew up in El Paso. Dinorah began her musical studies in El Paso with violinists James Angerstein and Abraham Chávez, both with whom my younger sister, Analissa, had also studied.
This picture was taken at a Salvadorean/Mexican restaurant in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. where Dinorah and I — craving pupusas — stopped for lunch in April 2015. She and I were reunited for three days at the NALAC Advocacy Institute.
When I took this picture, she had just told me that a few days prior she had become a U.S. Citizen.
At the end of our three days in D.C. Dinorah shared how emotional she felt to be in the Nation's Capital knowing that, for the first time, speaking as an American Citizen her voice would be heard. She was moved and hopeful that she would be able to make a profound difference in the lives of the immigrant young people with whom she works.
Mel ➤➤
Tags: NALAC
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